Take a gander at Warren's google site dedicated to fostering appreciation of and interest in war literature! And please don't forget to fill out the "IMPORTANT SURVEY" after perusing the blog! Check it out: https://sites.google.com/site/thewarlitzone/
Check out Micah's blog at supportrcprinter.blogspot.com and spread the word about RapCraft's new 3D printer. Don't be shy, give your opinions! Get the word out and help them get off the ground!
Wednesday, 5/23: Begin writing the report on your action. Use your action plan, and this flowchart Mrs. Maloney created, to help chart your process. All research and writing is due next Friday, June 1.
AND...Check out Allison's google site dedicated to raising awareness about homelessness! Take the data quiz on the page titled "Do YOU Care" and enjoy the other resources shared on the page! Have a swell long weekend :)
Here's the link: https://sites.google.com/site/7hopeforthehomeless7/
Monday, 5/21: Hi, this is Dan K. Please check out my discussion on the wiki page. Take about 15-20 minutes to do it. Please answer all the questions. If you can't answer a question, briefly indicate why. Thanks!
Friday, 5/17: If you're ready to measure the impact of your action, and you'd like to get online feedback from our classes, please post a link and a brief description below (see my sample). Make sure to save your edits to this page.
Sample Link: This is our class wikispace, where I post assignments and students can extend classroom conversation.
Tuesday, 5/15: This week, you're taking action and planning how to measure the impact of that action. To get started, set this week's agenda (or more) on the calendar you received. Address the questions below and submit the calendar by the end of class today.
1) What do you need to do in order to make your action happen?
If part of your action includes making a website, for example, you'd work on your own wiki, Google site -- or create a blog through Tumblr, blogger, or wordpress.
2) How will you measure the results of your action? Plan for data collection. If you're conducting a survey, create the specific questions you will ask and plan where/how you will gather data.
Wednesday, 5/9: Good luck on your AP Lit. exam tomorrow! I strongly suggest you review at least four works you could write about in detail for the third essay question, in addition to literary terms.
Here are the room assignments:
A - Huang: PITT Isaac - E. Shalek: 133 (chorus room) S. Shalek - Zane: 141
Wednesday, 4/25: Finish your term paper, incorporating learning from today's notes on past essays.
On Monday, April 30, be prepared to submit the following:
ü Final draft (hard copy and electronic copy on turnitin.com) ü Term Paper Evaluation Sheet w/ your name on it ü Completed Essay Comment Log ü Rough draft w/ peer review questions and comments ü Outline with my comments
Wednesday, 4/18: Today, we'll work on editing our drafts, including MLA in-text citations.
Friday, 4/4: Continue drafting your term paper -- it should be 9 - 12 pages and incorporate seven sources, at least four of which must be literary.Yes, this is revised from what I said in class (after I conferred with Mrs. Maloney).
Friday, 3/30: Begin drafting your term paper based on your outline, my comments, and the sample introductions we discussed in class today.
Also, for Monday, bring book #3 and notes.
For Tuesday, bring Hamlet and notes for an in-class essay.
Remember that the first draft of the term paper will be due on Wednesday, April 18.
Tuesday, 3/20: Please organize your notes for tomorrow's in-class essay -- here's what we used today to guide our thinking and revisions.
Wednesday, 3/14: Today, we wrote a practice in-class essay on the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from 3.1. Here's the essay question:
How does this soliloquy convey Hamlet's complex character? How does Shakespeare use literary devices to convey Hamlet's character?
Tuesday, 3/13: Read 3.3 and 3.4 and respond to two cited quotes per scene. Also, prepare for term paper novel #3: notes check will be on Monday, 3/19, and the entire book will be due on 4/2.
Friday, 3/9: Read 3.2 and respond to three cited quotes in your notebook. Please also share an evaluation of one of the three versions of 3.1 (and a bit of 2.2) we watched in class today.
Read the film as text: what choices do you notice in imagery, symbolism, characterization, mood (music and color palette contribute to this especially), setting, staging, conflict, theme, and more? What effects do they have, and do you agree with these artistic choices? What did you realize through watching?
You may want to focus your response on one choice, e.g. the portrayal of Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia.
Thursday, 3/8: Yesterday you added one more comment to the discussion, and tonight I'd like you to add two more. I will be posting some additional topics that you may want to consider. As I mentioned in class, I'm really enjoying following the discussion -- keep up the good work!
Tuesday, 3/6: We can supplement our in-class discussions of Hamlet on our discussion board. For tomorrow, post at least two responses to Act Two. You are encouraged to use your written journals and to start new discussion threads. Use specific supporting references to the text and make counterpoints to others' ideas.
Monday, 2/27:Your revised term paper outline is due this Friday. Send two electronic copies – one to misslingenglish@gmail.com, and another to turnitin.com. Add to the outline for the second novel, and revise what you wrote on the first novel.
Your outline must include:
ü Current Inquiry Question(s)
ü Working Thesis (answer to Inquiry Q)
ü Topic Sentences for each body paragraph
ü Supporting quotes and analysis
ü Consideration of secondary sources
ü Questions for the reader at the end of the outline
ü Working Bibliography
Refer to our previous outline guidelines, our class noteson sample outlines, and this list of database passwords.
Monday, 2/3: Finish listening to the Hamlet episode of "This American Life." Then, type a response (two pages max.), that addresses the following questions: What stood out to you as you listened to the episode? What did you take away from this broadcast? Why do you think the inmates related so well to the play? What connections can you make to The Dew Breaker as well as to our unit questions on good and evil? Would you see a production by Prison Performing Arts if you could?
Due Wed.: your term paper outline for novel #1, including how you will incorporate criticism.
Thursday, 2/2: Today is a lab day devoted to term paper work. Find at least one scholarly article that relates to your first novel. You could also begin outlining your paper, including plans for how to incorporate the article into your essay, and notes on how it addresses your inquiry question.
HW due tomorrow: Bring a hard copy of this article, which you will have highlighted and annotated with comments, questions, and connections. Be prepared to informally share your article, and to discuss how your research process and inquiry question are evolving.
Here are reflections on the research process from Mrs. Maloney's class, which could help you with your own process.
Friday, 1/27: Print and read this article on the Tonton Macoutes and respond to three highlighted quotes. For your term paper, novel #2 is due on 2/28, and we'll have a notes check on 2/13.
Monday, 1/9: Read "Seven" from The Dewbreaker and respond to three cited quotes. Socratic Seminars begin tomorrow. Also, submit your personal essay to turnitin.com.
Wednesday, 1/4: Read "The Book of the Dead" from The Dewbreaker and respond to three cited quotes. Work on your Statement of Research
to submit on Friday. On Monday, you will submit the final draft of your small moment narrative with peer review attached, and return 1984 and The Things They Carried.
Tuesday, 1/3: Please add at least one post to our unit questions on the nature of good and evil.
Thursday, 12/22: Today, we'll start to build a reading list for the term paper. Let's aim to find at least one relevant book for your topic by the end of the period.
Your sources must be of high literary and/or scholarly merit. Here's a comprehensive list of high-frequency authors on the A.P. exam, another one from The College Board, and another one from a leading A.P. Lit. teacher.
You can also research books and authors on GoodReads, LibraryThing , and Google Books.
How have authors presented my topic?
How has literature portrayed my topic/addressed my question?
What have others said about my topic?
How have writers treated/explored my topic?
Tuesday, 12/20: Today we reviewed directions for the small moment personal narrative essay, including an example essay.
We also started to think about topics for the term paper, which we'll finish by the A.P. Exam.
The goal is to generate an inquiry lens that allows you to read literature in terms of a topic/issue about which you care strongly so that our reading of literature helps us read the world.
Preliminary reflection questions for journaling:
What do you care about? What are you outraged by (e.g. women's rights; a place)? What bothers you? What makes you upset? What intrigues, moves, and/or engages you?
From your responses to one or more of these questions, you will select a topic that interests you deeply. Try to frame this inquiry lens in the form of a question, or series of questions.
Tuesday, 12/6: Read up to and including "In the Field" for Thursday. For each story, respond to two quotes and create a discussion question. Also, add three comments to the Wiki discussion. You may choose to comment on this excerpt about "On the Rainy River" from Tim O'Brien's lecture at Brown, which I read in class on Monday:
"Now, what I have told you is, is a war story. War stories aren't always about war, per se. They aren't about bombs and bullets and military maneuvers. They aren't about tactics, they aren't about foxholes and canteens. War stories, like any good story, is finally about the human heart. About the choices we make, or fail to make. The forfeitures in our lives. Stories are to console and to inspire and to help us heal. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. And a good war story, in my opinion, is a story that strikes you as important, not for war content, but for its heart content. The second reason I told you this story is that none of it's true. Or very little of it. It's - invented. No Ellroy, no Tip-Top Lodge, no pig factory, I'm trying to think of what else. I've never been to the Rainy River in my life. Uh, not even close to it. I haven't been within two hundred miles of the place. No boats. But, although the story I invented, it's still true, which is what fiction is all about. Uh, if I were to tell you the literal truth of what happened to me in the summer of nineteen sixty-eight, all I could tell you was that I played golf, and I worried about getting drafted. But that's a crappy story. Isn't it? It doesn't - it doesn't open any door to what I was feeling in the summer of nineteen sixty-eight. That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth. The pig factory is there for those dreams of slaughter - they were quite real inside of me. And in my own heart, I was certainly on that rainy river, trying to decide what to do, whether to go to the war or not go to it, say no or say yes. The story is still true, even though on one level it's not; it's made up.
The point was not to pull a fast one, any more than, you know, Mark Twain is trying to pull a fast one in Huckleberry Finn. Stories make you believe, that's what dialogue is for, that's what plot is for, and character. It's there to make you believe it as you're reading it. You don't read Huckleberry Finn saying "This never happened, this never happened, this never happened, this never happened-" I mean, you don't do that, or go to The Godfather and say, you know, no horse head. I mean, you don't think that way; you believe. A verisimilitude and truth in that literal sense, to me, is ultimately irrelevant. What is relevant is the human heart."
Friday, 11/23: Please print, read and annotate "Nature, History, and Narrative" for Monday. Please respond to six cited quotes from the article and bring both in on Monday.
Friday, 11/18: Review an adapted presentation on "Allegory of the Cave" by Dr. Matthew Fike of Winthrop University for additional insight into the story. Then, discuss two of our unit questions in the context of 1984 and/or "Allegory." How is our reading influencing your thinking about these questions?
Wednesday, 11/16: Respond individually to the "Allegory of the Cave" thread I posted on the discussion board. Your thinking may expand upon, or diverge from, what you discussed in class today. Use specific references to the text to support ideas and make counterpoints to others' ideas.
Wednesday, 11/9: Finish the novel, and respond to 10 cited quotes. Then, read the Allegory of the Cave, and draw a picture of it. Include a quote from the story as a caption for your illustration. Bring your quote responses and illustration to class on Monday.
Monday, 11/7: Reminder -- if you start a new thread, please give it a specific title.
Friday, 11/4: Finish Part One of 1984 and begin Part Two (I - VIII); respond to eight cited quotes from this section. Also, add at least three comments about the novel to our discussion board. I encourage you to make connections to our Truth unit questions, history, current events, and other texts. Both assignments are due Tuesday.
Here's an Apple ad influenced by 1984 that aired during the 1984 Super Bowl:
Friday, 10/28: Submit the final draft of your identity paper on Monday. Please attach the rough draft w/ peer comments that you worked on yesterday, and submit an electronic copy of the final essay to turnitin.com.
Friday, 10/14: Please post a summary of what your lit. circle discussed today (one summary per group). Label your thread with the name of your book and an original title that relates to some part of your summary.
Individually, post a response to another group's thread on your book.
Monday, 10/3: Please read "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self" by Alice Walker, and type a one-page response that includes connections to our unit questions on Identity.
Monday, 9/26:To prepare for our in-class passage analysis this Wednesday, please write another practice essay. Give yourself 40 minutes to write (though you may type your reponse).
Passages: GE: Begins with "'What have I done! What have I done!' She wrung her hands..." and ends with "...vanities that have been curses in the world?"
(Ch. 49, 370 -371 in my edition).
CP: Begins with "Sometime I meet up with Mr. _ visiting Henrietta" and ends with "He order shells from books, too and they all over the place" (259 - 260 in my editon).
Here are the texts in case you'd like to copy and paste them into your own document:
“What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. “What have I done!” I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker; I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?
Sometimes I meet up with Mr._visiting Henrietta. He dream up his own little sneaky recipes. For instance, one time he hid the yams in the peanut butter. Us sit by the fire with Harpo and Sofia and play a hand or two of bid whist, while Susie Q and Henrietta listen on the radio. Sometime he drive me home in his car. He still live in the same little house. He been there so long, it look just like him. Two straight chairs always on the porch, turned against the wall. Porch railings with flower cans on them. He keep it painted now though. Fresh and white. And guess what he collect just cause he like them? He collect shells. All kinds of shells. Tarrapin, snail and all kinds of shells from the sea. Matter of fact, that’s how he got me up to the house again. He was telling Sofia bout some new shell he had that made a loud sea sound when you put it up to your ear. Us went up to see it. It was big and heavy and speckled like a chicken and sure enough, seem like you could hear the waves or something crashing against your ear. None of us ever seen the ocean, but Mr. learn about it from books. He order shells from books too, and they all over the place.
Task: Read the above passages and consider the ways in which the two passages "speak to one another." Consider both meanings and the techniques the writers use to convey these meanings. You might consider techniques such as narrator/narrative voice, tone, syntax, imagery, and diction. Overall, explain how the juxtaposition of the two passages contributes to your understanding of the two novels.
Friday, 9/23: To prepare for our in-class passage analysis next Wednesday, please write a practice essay. Give yourself 40 minutes to write (though you may type your reponse).
Passage: Begins with "Well, she say, looking me up and down," and ends with "She don't say nothing else, just come over to me and hug" (152 - 153 in my edition).
Task: In this passage, Shug encourages Celie to begin a pantsmaking business. Read the excerpt carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Walkers uses elements such as imagery, figurative language, symbolism, diction, and tone to convey the complexity of Celie's character.
Tuesday, 9/20: Please share your response to last night's HW on our discussion board. Read the excerpt from the June Jordan article (123 - 126) and respond to 3 cited quotes in your notebook. Then, share a response to the article on our discussion board.
Friday, 9/16: Read Chapter One of Word from the Mother by Geneva Smitherman and respond to at least one quote per section (there are six). Discuss your response to at least two of these topics on our discussion board, and bring in your full set of responses on Monday. If you have time, read the excerpt from Ch. 2 (i.e. the last page in the packet).
Optional, but recommended: See if people have read and/or responded to what you wrote in the Great Expectations discussion, and add any other comments you have.
Thursday, 9/15:** Please read the original ending to Great Expectations and the attached excerpt from the secondary article. Respond to three cited quotes and share your response in at least two posts on our discussion board. For your reference, the essay is "The King of the Novel: An Introduction to Great Expectations" by John Irving. You can read the full text of the article here.
Periods One and Three, welcome to our Wikispace.
Check out Gabe's wiki on drug user stereotypes!-http://druguserstereotypes.wikispaces.com/
Check out Sana's post on the discussion thread! There's a survey that follows:
https://aplitmissling.wikispaces.com/message/view/home/54627874
Thank you so much! :)
Please check out Nevon's tumblr about alienation and please fill out this survey -- http://antialienation.tumblr.com/ http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VYX3BFX
Take a gander at Warren's google site dedicated to fostering appreciation of and interest in war literature! And please don't forget to fill out the "IMPORTANT SURVEY" after perusing the blog!
Check it out: https://sites.google.com/site/thewarlitzone/
Check out Micah's blog at supportrcprinter.blogspot.com and spread the word about RapCraft's new 3D printer. Don't be shy, give your opinions! Get the word out and help them get off the ground!
Wednesday, 5/23: Begin writing the report on your action. Use your action plan, and this flowchart Mrs. Maloney created, to help chart your process. All research and writing is due next Friday, June 1.
AND...Check out Allison's google site dedicated to raising awareness about homelessness! Take the data quiz on the page titled "Do YOU Care" and enjoy the other resources shared on the page! Have a swell long weekend :)
Here's the link: https://sites.google.com/site/7hopeforthehomeless7/
Monday, 5/21: Hi, this is Dan K. Please check out my discussion on the wiki page. Take about 15-20 minutes to do it. Please answer all the questions. If you can't answer a question, briefly indicate why. Thanks!
Friday, 5/17: If you're ready to measure the impact of your action, and you'd like to get online feedback from our classes, please post a link and a brief description below (see my sample). Make sure to save your edits to this page.
Sample Link: This is our class wikispace, where I post assignments and students can extend classroom conversation.
Tuesday, 5/15: This week, you're taking action and planning how to measure the impact of that action. To get started, set this week's agenda (or more) on the calendar you received. Address the questions below and submit the calendar by the end of class today.
1) What do you need to do in order to make your action happen?
If part of your action includes making a website, for example, you'd work on your own wiki, Google site -- or create a blog through Tumblr, blogger, or wordpress.
2) How will you measure the results of your action? Plan for data collection. If you're conducting a survey, create the specific questions you will ask and plan where/how you will gather data.
Purdue OWL has some good resources, including primers on interviewing, surveying, asking good questions, and analyzing your data.
Wednesday, 5/9: Good luck on your AP Lit. exam tomorrow! I strongly suggest you review at least four works you could write about in detail for the third essay question, in addition to literary terms.
Here are the room assignments:
A - Huang: PITT
Isaac - E. Shalek: 133 (chorus room)
S. Shalek - Zane: 141
Wednesday, 4/25: Finish your term paper, incorporating learning from today's notes on past essays.
On Monday, April 30, be prepared to submit the following:
ü Final draft (hard copy and electronic copy on turnitin.com)
ü Term Paper Evaluation Sheet w/ your name on it
ü Completed Essay Comment Log
ü Rough draft w/ peer review questions and comments
ü Outline with my comments
Wednesday, 4/18: Today, we'll work on editing our drafts, including MLA in-text citations.
Friday, 4/4: Continue drafting your term paper -- it should be 9 - 12 pages and incorporate seven sources, at least four of which must be literary.Yes, this is revised from what I said in class (after I conferred with Mrs. Maloney).
Friday, 3/30: Begin drafting your term paper based on your outline, my comments, and the sample introductions we discussed in class today.
Also, for Monday, bring book #3 and notes.
For Tuesday, bring Hamlet and notes for an in-class essay.
Remember that the first draft of the term paper will be due on Wednesday, April 18.
Tuesday, 3/20: Please organize your notes for tomorrow's in-class essay -- here's what we used today to guide our thinking and revisions.
Wednesday, 3/14: Today, we wrote a practice in-class essay on the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from 3.1. Here's the essay question:
How does this soliloquy convey Hamlet's complex character? How does Shakespeare use literary devices to convey Hamlet's character?
Tuesday, 3/13: Read 3.3 and 3.4 and respond to two cited quotes per scene. Also, prepare for term paper novel #3: notes check will be on Monday, 3/19, and the entire book will be due on 4/2.
Friday, 3/9: Read 3.2 and respond to three cited quotes in your notebook. Please also share an evaluation of one of the three versions of 3.1 (and a bit of 2.2) we watched in class today.
Read the film as text: what choices do you notice in imagery, symbolism, characterization, mood (music and color palette contribute to this especially), setting, staging, conflict, theme, and more? What effects do they have, and do you agree with these artistic choices? What did you realize through watching?
You may want to focus your response on one choice, e.g. the portrayal of Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia.
Thursday, 3/8: Yesterday you added one more comment to the discussion, and tonight I'd like you to add two more. I will be posting some additional topics that you may want to consider. As I mentioned in class, I'm really enjoying following the discussion -- keep up the good work!
Tuesday, 3/6: We can supplement our in-class discussions of Hamlet on our discussion board. For tomorrow, post at least two responses to Act Two. You are encouraged to use your written journals and to start new discussion threads. Use specific supporting references to the text and make counterpoints to others' ideas.
Monday, 2/27: Your revised term paper outline is due this Friday. Send two electronic copies – one to misslingenglish@gmail.com, and another to turnitin.com.
Add to the outline for the second novel, and revise what you wrote on the first novel.
Your outline must include:
ü Current Inquiry Question(s)
ü Working Thesis (answer to Inquiry Q)
ü Topic Sentences for each body paragraph
ü Supporting quotes and analysis
ü Consideration of secondary sources
ü Questions for the reader at the end of the outline
ü Working Bibliography
Refer to our previous outline guidelines, our class noteson sample outlines, and this list of database passwords.
Monday, 2/3: Finish listening to the Hamlet episode of "This American Life." Then, type a response (two pages max.), that addresses the following questions: What stood out to you as you listened to the episode? What did you take away from this broadcast? Why do you think the inmates related so well to the play? What connections can you make to The Dew Breaker as well as to our unit questions on good and evil? Would you see a production by Prison Performing Arts if you could?
Due Wed.: your term paper outline for novel #1, including how you will incorporate criticism.
Thursday, 2/2: Today is a lab day devoted to term paper work. Find at least one scholarly article that relates to your first novel. You could also begin outlining your paper, including plans for how to incorporate the article into your essay, and notes on how it addresses your inquiry question.
HW due tomorrow: Bring a hard copy of this article, which you will have highlighted and annotated with comments, questions, and connections. Be prepared to informally share your article, and to discuss how your research process and inquiry question are evolving.
Here are reflections on the research process from Mrs. Maloney's class, which could help you with your own process.
Don't forget JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the THS database page.
Friday, 1/27: Print and read this article on the Tonton Macoutes and respond to three highlighted quotes. For your term paper, novel #2 is due on 2/28, and we'll have a notes check on 2/13.
Monday, 1/9: Read "Seven" from The Dewbreaker and respond to three cited quotes. Socratic Seminars begin tomorrow. Also, submit your personal essay to turnitin.com.
Wednesday, 1/4: Read "The Book of the Dead" from The Dewbreaker and respond to three cited quotes. Work on your Statement of Research
to submit on Friday. On Monday, you will submit the final draft of your small moment narrative with peer review attached, and return 1984 and The Things They Carried.
Tuesday, 1/3: Please add at least one post to our unit questions on the nature of good and evil.
Thursday, 12/22: Today, we'll start to build a reading list for the term paper. Let's aim to find at least one relevant book for your topic by the end of the period.
Your sources must be of high literary and/or scholarly merit. Here's a comprehensive list of high-frequency authors on the A.P. exam, another one from The College Board, and another one from a leading A.P. Lit. teacher.
You can also research books and authors on GoodReads, LibraryThing , and Google Books.
Wednesday, 12/21: Today, we looked at sample inquiry questions, and sample beginnings to term papers.
Some question stems to keep in mind:
How have authors presented my topic?
How has literature portrayed my topic/addressed my question?
What have others said about my topic?
How have writers treated/explored my topic?
Tuesday, 12/20: Today we reviewed directions for the small moment personal narrative essay, including an example essay.
We also started to think about topics for the term paper, which we'll finish by the A.P. Exam.
The goal is to generate an inquiry lens that allows you to read literature in terms of a topic/issue about which you care strongly so that our reading of literature helps us read the world.
Preliminary reflection questions for journaling:
What do you care about? What are you outraged by (e.g. women's rights; a place)? What bothers you? What makes you upset? What intrigues, moves, and/or engages you?
From your responses to one or more of these questions, you will select a topic that interests you deeply. Try to frame this inquiry lens in the form of a question, or series of questions.
Tuesday, 12/6: Read up to and including "In the Field" for Thursday. For each story, respond to two quotes and create a discussion question. Also, add three comments to the Wiki discussion. You may choose to comment on this excerpt about "On the Rainy River" from Tim O'Brien's lecture at Brown, which I read in class on Monday:
"Now, what I have told you is, is a war story. War stories aren't always about war, per se. They aren't about bombs and bullets and military maneuvers. They aren't about tactics, they aren't about foxholes and canteens. War stories, like any good story, is finally about the human heart. About the choices we make, or fail to make. The forfeitures in our lives. Stories are to console and to inspire and to help us heal. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. And a good war story, in my opinion, is a story that strikes you as important, not for war content, but for its heart content. The second reason I told you this story is that none of it's true. Or very little of it. It's - invented. No Ellroy, no Tip-Top Lodge, no pig factory, I'm trying to think of what else. I've never been to the Rainy River in my life. Uh, not even close to it. I haven't been within two hundred miles of the place. No boats. But, although the story I invented, it's still true, which is what fiction is all about. Uh, if I were to tell you the literal truth of what happened to me in the summer of nineteen sixty-eight, all I could tell you was that I played golf, and I worried about getting drafted. But that's a crappy story. Isn't it? It doesn't - it doesn't open any door to what I was feeling in the summer of nineteen sixty-eight. That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth. The pig factory is there for those dreams of slaughter - they were quite real inside of me. And in my own heart, I was certainly on that rainy river, trying to decide what to do, whether to go to the war or not go to it, say no or say yes. The story is still true, even though on one level it's not; it's made up.
The point was not to pull a fast one, any more than, you know, Mark Twain is trying to pull a fast one in Huckleberry Finn. Stories make you believe, that's what dialogue is for, that's what plot is for, and character. It's there to make you believe it as you're reading it. You don't read Huckleberry Finn saying "This never happened, this never happened, this never happened, this never happened-" I mean, you don't do that, or go to The Godfather and say, you know, no horse head. I mean, you don't think that way; you believe. A verisimilitude and truth in that literal sense, to me, is ultimately irrelevant. What is relevant is the human heart."
Friday, 11/23: Please print, read and annotate "Nature, History, and Narrative" for Monday. Please respond to six cited quotes from the article and bring both in on Monday.
Friday, 11/18: Review an adapted presentation on "Allegory of the Cave" by Dr. Matthew Fike of Winthrop University for additional insight into the story. Then, discuss two of our unit questions in the context of 1984 and/or "Allegory." How is our reading influencing your thinking about these questions?
Wednesday, 11/16: Respond individually to the "Allegory of the Cave" thread I posted on the discussion board. Your thinking may expand upon, or diverge from, what you discussed in class today. Use specific references to the text to support ideas and make counterpoints to others' ideas.
Here's a related cartoon from xkcd:
Wednesday, 11/9: Finish the novel, and respond to 10 cited quotes. Then, read the Allegory of the Cave, and draw a picture of it. Include a quote from the story as a caption for your illustration. Bring your quote responses and illustration to class on Monday.
Monday, 11/7: Reminder -- if you start a new thread, please give it a specific title.
Friday, 11/4: Finish Part One of 1984 and begin Part Two (I - VIII); respond to eight cited quotes from this section. Also, add at least three comments about the novel to our discussion board. I encourage you to make connections to our Truth unit questions, history, current events, and other texts. Both assignments are due Tuesday.
Here's an Apple ad influenced by 1984 that aired during the 1984 Super Bowl:
Friday, 10/28: Submit the final draft of your identity paper on Monday. Please attach the rough draft w/ peer comments that you worked on yesterday, and submit an electronic copy of the final essay to turnitin.com.
Friday, 10/14: Please post a summary of what your lit. circle discussed today (one summary per group). Label your thread with the name of your book and an original title that relates to some part of your summary.
Individually, post a response to another group's thread on your book.
Monday, 10/3: Please read "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self" by Alice Walker, and type a one-page response that includes connections to our unit questions on Identity.
Monday, 9/26:To prepare for our in-class passage analysis this Wednesday, please write another practice essay. Give yourself 40 minutes to write (though you may type your reponse).
Passages:
GE: Begins with "'What have I done! What have I done!' She wrung her hands..." and ends with "...vanities that have been curses in the world?"
(Ch. 49, 370 -371 in my edition).
CP: Begins with "Sometime I meet up with Mr. _ visiting Henrietta" and ends with "He order shells from books, too and they all over the place" (259 - 260 in my editon).
Here are the texts in case you'd like to copy and paste them into your own document:
“What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. “What have I done!”
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker; I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?
Sometimes I meet up with Mr._visiting Henrietta. He dream up his own little sneaky recipes. For instance, one time he hid the yams in the peanut butter. Us sit by the fire with Harpo and Sofia and play a hand or two of bid whist, while Susie Q and Henrietta listen on the radio. Sometime he drive me home in his car. He still live in the same little house. He been there so long, it look just like him. Two straight chairs always on the porch, turned against the wall. Porch railings with flower cans on them. He keep it painted now though. Fresh and white. And guess what he collect just cause he like them? He collect shells. All kinds of shells. Tarrapin, snail and all kinds of shells from the sea.
Matter of fact, that’s how he got me up to the house again. He was telling Sofia bout some new shell he had that made a loud sea sound when you put it up to your ear. Us went up to see it. It was big and heavy and speckled like a chicken and sure enough, seem like you could hear the waves or something crashing against your ear. None of us ever seen the ocean, but Mr. learn about it from books. He order shells from books too, and they all over the place.
Task: Read the above passages and consider the ways in which the two passages "speak to one another." Consider both meanings and the techniques the writers use to convey these meanings. You might consider techniques such as narrator/narrative voice, tone, syntax, imagery, and diction. Overall, explain how the juxtaposition of the two passages contributes to your understanding of the two novels.
Friday, 9/23: To prepare for our in-class passage analysis next Wednesday, please write a practice essay. Give yourself 40 minutes to write (though you may type your reponse).
Passage: Begins with "Well, she say, looking me up and down," and ends with "She don't say nothing else, just come over to me and hug" (152 - 153 in my edition).
Task: In this passage, Shug encourages Celie to begin a pantsmaking business. Read the excerpt carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Walkers uses elements such as imagery, figurative language, symbolism, diction, and tone to convey the complexity of Celie's character.
Tuesday, 9/20: Please share your response to last night's HW on our discussion board. Read the excerpt from the June Jordan article (123 - 126) and respond to 3 cited quotes in your notebook. Then, share a response to the article on our discussion board.
Friday, 9/16: Read Chapter One of Word from the Mother by Geneva Smitherman and respond to at least one quote per section (there are six). Discuss your response to at least two of these topics on our discussion board, and bring in your full set of responses on Monday. If you have time, read the excerpt from Ch. 2 (i.e. the last page in the packet).
Optional, but recommended: See if people have read and/or responded to what you wrote in the Great Expectations discussion, and add any other comments you have.
Thursday, 9/15:** Please read the original ending to Great Expectations and the attached excerpt from the secondary article. Respond to three cited quotes and share your response in at least two posts on our discussion board. For your reference, the essay is "The King of the Novel: An Introduction to Great Expectations" by John Irving. You can read the full text of the article here.
Unit One: The Search for Identity
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ipadshamletpassageanalysisAct32012.docx